


Once around the sun

by 62miles



Series: Anosmia [4]
Category: SHINee
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-19 04:32:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4732892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/62miles/pseuds/62miles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Like perihelion, it comes and goes. You spend the entirety of your life—or the entirety of a few months, a few days, a few minutes—getting closer to and then further away from and then closer to him again. You reach and you reach, and then you're at your closest.</p><p> </p><p>But the moment isn't yours to keep.</p><p>It just passes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once around the sun

**Author's Note:**

> Originally chapter 8, now the fourth piece in the series. It's hard picking which ones to post to AO3 because they all have ideas, phrases, sentences that interconnect.

  
  
  
  
  
_9_ _4,509_ _,460; 9_ _1,402_ _,640_  
  
  
  
  
  
See, there are these little moments.  
  
  
Like that time when he slices his finger open and runs for the kitchen sink. It takes a few too many minutes, a few too many pieces of paper towel.  
  
  
He wraps it around the wound and squeezes, a well-practiced routine. Crimson circles begin growing through the layers. Over the canvas of white. He bleeds a little too much.  
  
  
_I don't have disinfectant or anything like that_.  
  
  
He shrugs and throws out the last piece of paper towel. And as an answer, he conjures up a band-aid from the depth of his bag. Minho watches him put it on, only to end up helping out.  
  
  
They share the silence.  
  
  
  
  
_I don't like my hands._  
  
  
  
  
Jinki murmurs it very, very softly. Taking Minho's hand, he carefully spreads it out next to his.  
  
  
Minho's palm is broader, the fingers longer, the joints more distinct, the tips tapered. Jinki has the hand of a child, like rolls of cookie dough, with small round nails.  
  
  
  
  
Suddenly he laughs and there it is:  
  
  
_I told my mom one day I'll marry a girl with pretty hands!_  
  
  
  
  
He holds onto that for three seconds. Then he straightens up and pats Minho's arm: can you wash the knife for me?  
  
  
And the moment, like the moments they would spend emptying themselves of the secrets, the excuses, the lies, lapses into something a little blurrier around the edges. Like a breath that goes out and your muscles relax and your lungs deflate. And you're a little less than what you were. What you could be.  
  
  
Like perihelion.  
  
  
It comes and goes. You spend the entirety of your life—or the entirety of a few months, a few days, a few minutes—getting closer to and then further away from and then closer to him again. You reach and you reach, and then you're at your closest.  
  
  
  
  
But the moment isn't yours to keep.  
  
  
It just passes.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"So."  
  
  
"What?"  Jinki mumbles around the cap of his black Bic pen.  
  
  
"I mean, really?"  
  
  
"Really what?" He gnaws at it a little harder. "Jappyeo? Noppyeo?"  
  
  
"This."  
  
  
"Jappyeo, jappyeo..."  
  
  
Minho places a hand over the crossword puzzle book pushed up against his chest.  
  
  
Jinki twists his mouth and tries to shove the hand off the page.  
  
  
"What's jappyeo in English?"  
  
  
Instead of answering, Minho stares at him.  
  
  
Jinki steals a glance and goes right back to gnawing on his pen cap.  
  
  
Straight white teeth, set against the black.  
  
  
Like piano keys.  
  
  
Someone laughs too loudly in the background.  
  
  
"If I knew you really only needed the dictionary on my phone..."  
  
  
"I have my own dictionary! The paper kind—"  
  
  
Jinki's protest cuts off as a stranger knocks into Minho's back and the taller man takes the chance to close half of the five inches between them. Minho's wrist is pressed against the side of Jinki's neck. _His skin is a little too warm_ , Minho thinks.  
  
  
He stares at Jinki again.  
  
  
This time, the other man stares back.  
  
  
And then he shrinks a little against the pole that he is propped up against.  
  
  
"Ulna."  
  
  
"H-huh?"  
  
  
"Eooolll," Minho exaggerates the motions of his lips, "nahhh."  
  
  
Jinki blinks.  
  
  
Minho fights to keep a straight face.  
  
  
He slides his fingers down to the crook of Jinki's elbow. Leaning forward, he says—  
  
  
"Thirty-two across. Ulna."  
  
  
Minho watches the way his breath displaces a few strands of Jinki's hair. The tip of the other man's left ear reddens.  
  
  
Jinki shakes off Minho's hand and pushes a little harder against the crossword puzzle book. Beneath his colorless fingertips, the ink smudges over the cheap recycled paper.  
  
  
"Oh. Th-thanks."  
  
  
He quickly scribbles the letters into the four empty squares: U-L-N-A.  
  
  
"So."  
  
  
"What?"  
  
  
"This is all that you wanted to do?"  
  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
  
"To use me as a wall to do crosswords against? On a stuffy subway car that's packed like a can of sardines?"  
  
  
Jinki picks at his lip.  
  
  
"Oh. Should we have taken a taxi instead? I mean, I thought—"  
  
  
"And why English crosswords?"  
  
  
"What's wrong with English crosswords?"  
  
  
"You don't speak the language."  
  
  
"I took it straight through university! And I've self-studied..."  
  
  
"Right, but you didn't know ulna."  
  
  
"Not like you know what a sisang bonghap is!"  
  
  
"Santa."  
  
  
Jinki is taken off guard.  
  
  
"Fourteen down."  
  
  
The distraction tactic works.  
  
  
He fills it in.  
  
  
"Did your family celebrate Christmas? With a tree and lights and decorations and all that? And presents under the tree? Maybe milk and cookies left out for Santa?"  
  
  
"We'd have dinner. Then my brother and I would get our presents face-to-face from our parents. Why?"  
  
  
"Nothing. Just wondering. How do kids stop believing in Santa Claus?"  
  
  
"Didn't you go through that?"  
  
  
Jinki shakes his head.  
  
  
"I knew the story, but we never had a tree or anything. I just got to pick something I really wanted to eat. Sometimes my mom would make it; other times we'd go out. There were presents, I guess, sort of lumped in with Lunar New Year's, even when they fell more than a month apart. But it was only ever the practical kind. If I'd outgrown my winter jacket, we'd go shopping for a new one. If I'd lost my mittens...stuff like that. And then when I grew older and started reading a lot, she'd get me books."  
  
  
He pauses.  
  
  
Then he fills out the word that shares the N of S-A-N-T-A.  
  
  
N-A-S-A-L.  
  
  
"I just think Santa is kinda cool, you know?"  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Here?"  
  
  
"Yup."  
  
  
It's a sketchy sort of place: downtrodden earth, scratched up folding tables, sheets of plastic draped over a metal frame. The smell of alcohol and loud conversations color the air.  
  
  
"The ramyeon here is very good!"  
  
  
Minho's stride shortens.  
  
  
"Honest!"  
  
  
Jinki looks over his shoulder and smiles.  
  
  
They order from the handwritten menu. Black marker on pieces of strung-up cardboard, really.  
  
  
Jinki finds them a corner table and settles down with a new crossword. And Minho, he's relegated to watching the other man's hair whorl and, on occasion, acting the part his personal search engine.  
  
  
Jinki tucks away the book and the pen when their orders arrive.  
  
  
Across the veil of steam dividing the two of them, he mouths a quiet _jal meokkesseupnida_.  
  
  
But instead of digging in with his chopsticks, he turns to the condiments on the edge of the table and folds dollops gochujang into the noodles. The soup soon turns a frightening color.  
  
  
It takes only a few mouthfuls before his eyes start watering and his nose starts running.  
  
  
He doesn't use a tissue; he just cries into his bowl.  
  
  
  
  
"Why?"  
  
  
  
  
Jinki sniffs loudly and yanks out a piece of pink-skinned eomuk from the stack that he has piled on top of the egg. Like Jenga.  
  
  
"It was either this or soju on an empty stomach."  
  
  
He eats the eomuk with a piece of vegetable and mumbles from behind his hand.  
  
  
"Ramyeon is better for you than soju, right?"  
  
  
_The gochujang_ , Minho wants to say, _I meant the gochujang, not the ramyeon_.  
  
  
Jinki starts blowing on another mouthful of noodles.  
  
  
"They go down burning."  
  
  
He gracelessly shoves the food into his mouth and slurps. It's a struggle; he huffs in the process. But eventually, his cheeks bulge in success. Picking up a piece of tteok, he holds it out towards Minho.  
  
  
"And they warm you up from the inside out."  
  
  
The lower rim of his eyes are pink, the whites yellow under the naked bulbs of the makeshift tent.  
  
  
His fringe is matted down with sweat.  
  
  
One, two—  
  
  
The soup drips down onto the plastic tabletop.  
  
  
Still, Minho makes no move.  
  
  
Jinki's eyes crinkle; he takes the tteok back and eats it as if nothing has happened.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Jinki asks to go to the convenience store to get drinks.  
  
  
But they end up with two gray plastic bags of something else entirely.  
  
  
Jinki buys two packs of sparklers and a Roman candle.  
  
  
Minho picks out a Roman candle for himself and a few jumping jacks.  
  
  
  
  
They light them with Minho's lighter.  
  
  
  
  
Clink.  
  
  
Clunk.  
  
  
  
  
The jumping jacks go first.  
  
  
They throw themselves into a panicked frenzy, but go out all too soon.  
  
  
The Roman candles are better.  
  
  
The stars, with their bright comet tails, shoot up high. They go whistling into the darkness, every few seconds. But all that they really leave behind are the plumes of smoke that obscure every subsequent star.  
  
  
And then the sparklers.  
  
  
They light them one after another. Like cigarettes on a really bad night.  
  
  
Jinki tries to write words into the air.  
  
  
Minho manages to make out _ramyeon_.  
  
  
And _soju_.  
  
  
And _Christmas_.  
  
  
And _eomma_.  
  
  
And _bogoshipda_.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Doesn't it bother you?"  
  
  
"Hm?"  
  
  
The light from the sparkler casts bizarre shadows against his face.  
  
  
"The smoke."  
  
  
Jinki's sparkler goes out and Minho hands him his.  
  
  
It's the last one.  
  
  
"I guess."  
  
  
His voice is hoarse. From the smoke or from the gochujang, Minho doesn't know.  
  
  
"Are you okay?"  
  
  
Minho asks it with a seriousness that weighs too heavily against his ribcage.  
  
  
The sparkler goes out.  
  
  
For a moment, Minho can't see anything.  
  
  
And then there is the halo of Jinki's hair.  
  
  
And the outline of his nose.  
  
  
And the shell of his ear.  
  
  
And a row of teeth.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"I'm fine."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
He hides the truth behind a smile.  
  
  
And three years later, over a plate of paglia e fieno, Minho tells Kibum—  
  
  
  
  
_It's a lot easier talking to you than to him._  
  
  
  
  



End file.
